My doctoral research explores the unexpected interconnections between devotional life and post-earthquake reconstruction in Bhaktapur, Nepal, one of the world’s most distinctive reconstruction sites, where a Communist municipal government has committed the locality’s resources to the rebuilding of worship sites. My project is concerned with the remarkable initiatives to rebuild the many structures that were demolished in the 2015 earthquakes, being undertaken in Nepal’s most important centre of spiritual activity and principal international tourist destination. My key focus is on understanding how rebuilding projects are experienced as affective spiritual initiatives, and how restoration activities relate to my interlocutors’ perception of the city’s entwining of material and sacred geographies. My fieldwork documents the interaction between devotees for whom the city is a site of multiple interacting devotional sites and traditions, and groups of officials whose concerns are with the city as an officially valorised heritage site. I explore the complex temporality of my interlocutors’ lives as contributors to the city’s rebuilding schemes, which they pursue as a matter of their personal interest, as victims of the earthquake, and as devotees who seek protection from local deities.
